Criminally Insane: The Life of Opal Koboi
by Mountain Viscacha
Summary: The story of Opal Koboi's life, from birth to just before The Arctic Incident. I'm publishing it a chapter at a time, and I'll release them when I get at least seven comments on the last one. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

Ferall Koboi paced outside his wife's bedroom, his face a mass of worry lines, from the tips of his pointed ears to the corners of his darting eyes. He really was trying to remain calm, he really was, but he just could no silence hi internal monologue.

"I knew we should have gone to the hospital instead of calling the doctor, I knew it! Everything is going to go terribly wrong, and Rose is going to die, and the baby will be a _girl_, and the doctor will charge extra, and..." His inner ramblings were cut short by the opening of the bedroom door. The doctor, a warlock, emerged, carrying his bag.

"Doctor, is she all right, please say she's all right, can I go see her, please, tell me everything, Doctor!"

Doctor Philius Pepper paused, smiling, and wiped his glasses carefully before answering, "Your wife is perfectly fine, sir, so you can stop wringing your hands like that. I don't specialize in finger surgery." Ferall looked down at his hands, note even aware that in his anxiety he had been squeezing them hard enough to turn them as red as a sun burnt dwarf.

"Now, Mr. Koboi, your wife and child need some rest, so I strongly advise waiting to go see them until she calls for you. Why don't you go for a walk? Might do you some good," he winked. "Some chocolate wouldn't hurt either. Good day, sir." The warlock doffed his hat and headed for the door.

"Wait! Is it a boy or a girl?" Ferall called after him. But Dr. Pepper was out of earshot. Oh well, he would find out soon enough. In the meantime, he would take the doctor's advice. Not to go take a walk; he wanted to be there the moment his wife wanted him, but to have some chocolate. He headed for his study.

Pixies, as you may not be aware, are not only power-hungry, ambitious, and greedy, they are also extremely fond of chocolate. If there is any chance of a bite to eat between meals, it will be chocolate. Midnight snack? Chocolate. Dessert? Chocolate, and so on. Pixies, being greedy, also don't want to share their chocolate, which is why Ferall Koboi kept his in a secret hiding place in his study, in a vase given to him by his mother. It was quite a hideous piece of pottery, about as big as Koboi himself, with three curvy handles and a bright fuchsia glaze. The perfect place, as nobody wanted to go near it.

Reaching into the pink monstrosity for some chocolate truffles, the devious pixie began to plan the life of his offspring. His anxieties removed upon the reassurances of Dr. Pepper, his usual cunning and guile returned. First, his son (for there was no chance of it being a _girl!_) would be sent to the most prestigious school for precocious young fairies in Haven, the Haven Academy of Engineering for Toddlers through Teenagers. After graduating at the top of his class, the boy...

"Ferall, darling," a weak voice called from the bedroom, "Don't you want to come in?"

Ferall sighed, stowing the remains of the box of truffles back in their hiding place. As much as he loved Rose, he loved chocolate and plotting more. Crossing the hall to her room and opening the door, he was shocked to hear her say, "Oh, Ferall, isn't she beautiful?"

She?

He had a daughter?

But he hadn't planned for a daughter, only a son! Oh, this was terrible, and just what he had feared. He couldn't tell his wife this, though, and lied through his teeth. "Gorgeous, sweetheart, just gorgeous."

Rose was, as always, oblivious to her husband's displeasure. She had eyes only for her newborn daughter, who was wide awake for being only forty-five minutes old. The infant's eyes were darting around in her small face, trying to find the sources of the interesting sounds. Those eyes were an iridescent blue-green, just like...

"Opals. Don't her eyes look like tiny opals, Ferall?"

"They do indeed, sugar. Why don't you name the precious thing Opal? It fits, doesn't it?"

You had to feel sorry for Ferall. Though he did not know it at the time, he had just named a criminal mastermind who would attempt to dominate the planet and succeed in ruining the rest of his life... after a precious stone.


	2. Chapter 2

Rose Koboi was concerned. Her daughter, Opal, was almost two years old, and had asked for many items for her birthday. These items included, but were in no way limited to: a powerful computer with a very small keyboard fitted to her tiny hands, a top-of-the-line soldering iron, a professional hard drive construction manual, a wall size lighted vanity mirror, and a large box of gourmet chocolate truffles.

Mrs. Koboi worried that Opal would have no friends when she went to school in a few years, the other children would simply be too frightened of her. Normal two year olds did not have a vocabulary as large as Opal's. Rose feared she herself wouldn't be able to understand her daughter when she started kindergarten if her vocabulary continued to grow at this rate. Normal two year olds did not teach themselves to dismantle and reconstruct hard drives and other electronics by practicing on everything in their own house. Normal two year olds did not toilet train themselves. And normal two year olds certainly did not know how to read!

To tell you the truth, normal _adults_ couldn't do half the things Opal could. If her skills continued growing as they already were, she would be perpetually ahead of the learning curve by at least fifteen years! Rose would have to talk to her husband about this. He was probably in his study.

Walking down the long hall to Mr. Koboi's study (for he must insist on being as far from everybody else in the house as possible), Rose wondered what her precocious two year old was up to. She came to the conclusion that she did not really want to know, as it would only add to her worries.

The study door was open, with the lights on, and Ferall was sitting at his desk, typing furiously on a virtual keyboard. The sudden appearance of his wife broke his concentration, and he scowled.

"What is it woman, and make it snappy! Time is money!" Then, seeing Rose's expression of concern, his face softened and his voice grew sweeter, like he had soaked his vocal cords in sugar water. "Whatever is the matter, pumpkin?"

I'm worried about Opal," said Rose, seating herself in the chair across from him, visibly relieved that he had not sent her away. "She has never been right for her age, and I am afraid she won't have any friends at all when she starts school in a few years, all the other students will be too scared of her."

"I see what you're saying, and it just isn't normal. She should leave stuff of this sort, the tinkering and engineering and such, to the males. Women should not be this intelligent. We should go have a talk with her, right now."

"Now?" Rose was confused. "But weren't you doing something important when I came in? You should finish that first. I'll go talk to Opal." She rose, heading for the door.

"You'll do no such thing!" Ferall, always in control, blocked the doorway. "I want to make it clear to the little blighter that she is to stop this nonsense immediately!" He calmed himself down. No need to frighten the wife. "Then you can teach her how to paint or knit or something feminine like that," he said in his sugar water voice. "Let's go find her."

Opal was, as usual, seated atop a stack of boxes in front of the family computer, typing so fast you couldn't see her fingers. She didn't even look up when her parents came into the room, the little pixie was so absorbed in whatever it was she was doing.

"Opal, darling? Could you listen to us for a moment, please?" Rose said, tentatively.

"I am listening, Mother. I can hear every word you are saying, loud and clear." She didn't bat an eyelid, didn't miss a key stroke. Not so absorbed she couldn't listen, then.

"Now see here, Missy!" Ferall was furious. "You keep a civil tongue in your head when you are addressing your parents, is that understood? And look at us when we're speaking to you!"

Opal stopped typing and turned. "Yes, Father. Completely understood . What did you wish to speak to me about?"

"We _wished_ to speak to you about your behaviour! Your outrageous hobbies! Females aren't supposed to write computer programs and fix hard drives and all these other things that _you _seem to take pleasure in! You need to stop this at once! This instant! Leave stuff of this sort to the males and go learn how to paint watercolours or something feminine!"

Opal sat, smirking at her father. "Is there more, Father, or are you finished?"

Ferall opened and closed his mouth several times, his expression one of fury and shock. Unable to say any thing, he simply turned and left, slamming the door behind him. Rose was on the verge of tears and, after several moments spent staring at her precocious offspring, she too, left.

Opal returned to the computer, glad it was over. This was the first of many "conversations" with her father on this topic. It was almost certainly the most pleasant.


End file.
